Queer left politics, pop culture and skepticism

About the author

Alex Gabriel is the author of Godlessness in Theory, a blog about religion and how to leave it, popular rhetoric and political dissent, secular, nerd and LGBT cultures, sexuality and gender or whatever else comes to mind. mralexgabriel@me.com; @AlexGabriel.

‘Why Lena Dunham’s Curves Make Me Feel Like Shit About My Own’, by Chelsea Leibow (Feminspire)The extremism against her form, the repulsion I’ve witnessed from not just random commenters hiding behind a handle, but real friends willing to screech about their need for a sick bag when they see her on screen, break my goddamn heart. Because god forbid I be so lucky as to have a career like this woman’s.

‘Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris Are Old News: A Totally Different Atheism Is on the Rise’, by Chris Hall (AlterNet)When old-school atheists attempt to dismiss social justice issues as ‘mission drift,’ it seems like a betrayal of the very principle that was most attractive about standing up and identifying as an atheist in the first place.

‘It’s Time For People to Stop Using the Social Construct of “Biological Sex” to Defend Their Transmisogyny’, by Mey (Autostraddle)Those who claim that sex is determined by chromosomes must not realize that sex is assigned at birth not by chromosomes, not even by gonads, but by genitals. In fact, the vast majority of us never learn what our sex chromosomes are. Sex isn’t something we’re actually born with, it’s something that doctors or our parents assign us at birth.

‘Scotland should go it alone’, by Dòmhnall Iain Dòmhnallach (The Oxford Student)Voting yes to independence is not anglophobic – it is a statement that the people who happen to live in Scotland deserve better than Westminster. Voting yes means voting no to nuclear weapons, no to the bedroom tax, no to the all-out assault on the welfare state which has become almost axiomatic within the London parties.

‘Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about’, by Sikivu Hutchinson (The Washington Post)When [black nonbelievers] look to atheist and humanist organizations for solidarity on these issues, there is a staggering lack of interest. And though some mainstream atheist organizations have jumped on the ‘diversity’ bandwagon, they haven’t seriously grappled with the issue. Simply trotting out atheists of color to speak about ‘diversity’ at overwhelmingly white conferences doesn’t cut it.